sand of the suffering women-tell us, and think of the griefs that die unspoken! Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman; and there are women enough lying in the next churchyard with very commonplace blue slate-stones at their head and feet, for whom it was just as true that "all sounds of life assumed one tone of love," as for Letitia Landon, of whom Elizabeth Browning said it; but she could give words to her grief, and they could not.- Will you hear a few stanzas of mine?

THE VOICELESS.

WE count the broken lyres that rest

Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,-
But o'er their silent sister's breast

The wild flowers who will stoop to number?

A few can touch the magic string,

And noisy Fame is proud to win them;-
Alas for those that never sing,

But die with all their music in them!

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone

Whose song has told their hearts' sad story,—

Weep for the voiceless, who have known
The cross without the crown of glory!
Not where Leucadian breezes sweep

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow,
But where the glistening night-dews weep
On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

Learts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses,

Till Death pours out his cordial wine
Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

I hope that our landlady's daughter is not so badly off, after all. That young man from another city who made the remark which you remember about Boston State-house and Boston folks, has appeared at our table repeatedly of late, and has seemed to me rather attentive to this young lady. Only last evening I saw him leaning over her while she was playing the accordion,-indeed, I undertook to join them in a song, and got as far as "Come rest in this boo-oo," when, my voice getting tremulous, I turned off, as one steps out of a procession, and left the basso and soprano to finish it. I see no reason why this young woman should not be a very proper match for a man that laughs about Boston Statehouse. He can't be very particular.

The young fellow whom I have so often mentioned was a little free in his remarks, but very goodnatured.-Sorry to have you go,-he said.-Schoolma'am made a mistake not to wait for me. Haven't taken anything but mournin' fruit at breakfast since I heard of it.Mourning fruit,-said I,-what's that?Huckleberries and blackberries, said he; -couldn't eat in colors, raspberries, currants, and

such, after a solemn thing like this happening.-The conceit seemed to please the young fellow. If you will believe it, when we came down to breakfast the next morning, he had carried it out as follows. You know those odious little "saäs-plates" that figure so largely at boarding-houses, and especially at taverns, into which a strenuous attendant female trowels little dabs, sombre of tint and heterogeneous of composition, which it makes you feel homesick to look at, and into which you poke the elastic coppery teaspoon with the air of a cat dipping her foot into a wash-tub,-(not that I mean to say anything against them, for, when they are of tinted porcelain or starry many-faceted crystal, and hold clean bright berries, or pale virgin honey, or "lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon," and the teaspoon is of white silver, with the Tower-stamp, solid, but not brutally heavy,—as people in the green stage of millionism will have them, I can dally with their amber semi-fluids or glossy spherules without a shiver,)—you know these small, deep dishes, I say. When we came down the next morning, each of these (two only excepted) was covered with a broad leaf. On lifting this, each boarder found a small heap of solemn black huckle berries. But one of those plates held red currants, and was covered with a red rose; the other held white currants, and was covered with a white rosc. There was a laugh at this at first, and then a short silence, and I noticed that her lip trembled, and the

old gentleman opposite was in trouble to get at his bandanna handkerchief.

"What was the use in waiting? We should be too late for Switzerland, that season, if we waited much longer."-The hand I held trembled in mine, and the eyes fell meekly, as Esther bowed herself before the feet of Ahasuerus.-She had been reading that chapter, for she looked up,-if there was a film of moisture over her eyes there was also the faintest shadow of a distant smile skirting her lips, but not enough to accent the dimples,-and said, in her pretty, still way,-" If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes"

I don't remember what King Ahasuerus did or said when Esther got just to that point of her soft, humble words, but I know what I did. That quotation from Scripture was cut short, anyhow. We came to a compromise on the great question, and the time was settled for the last day of summer.

In the mean time, I talked on with our boarders, much as usual, as you may see by what I have reported. I must say, I was pleased with a certain tenderness they all showed toward us, after the first excitement of the news was over. It came out in trivial matters,-but each one, in his or her way, manifested kindness. Our landlady, for instance, when we had chickens, sent the liver instead of the giz

zard, with the wing, for the schoolmistress. This was not an accident; the two are never mistaken, though some landladies appear as if they did not know the difference. The whole of the company were even more respectfully attentive to my remarks than usual. There was no idle punning, and very little winking on the part of that lively young gentle man who, as the reader may remember, occasionally interposed some playful question or remark, which could hardly be considered relevant, except when the least allusion was made to matrimony, when he would look at the landlady's daughter, and wink with both sides of his face, until she would ask what he was pokin' his fun at her for, and if he wasn't ashamed of himself. In fact, they all behaved very handsomely, so that I really felt sorry at the thought of leaving my boarding-house.

I suppose you think, that, because I lived at a plain widow-woman's plain table, I was of course more or less infirm in point of worldly fortune. You may not be sorry to learn, that, though not what great merchants call very rich, I was comfortable,comfortable, so that most of those moderate luxuries I described in my verses on Contentment—most of them, I say-were within our reach, if we chose to have them. But I found out that the schoolmistress had a vein of charity about her, which had hitherto been worked on a small silver and copper basis, which made her think less, perhaps, of luxuries